With the winter season quickly approaching, Pennsylvania drivers have had to keep a close eye out for the not-so-welcomed new road challenges that come with the change of the season. With Centre County already seeing some snow in late November, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, or PennDOT, is preparing for another busy winter season. With over 250 thousand miles of road in the Keystone state, PennDOT community relations coordinator and press officer Marlin Fannin says there’s a lot of work that goes into preparing for an incoming storm. “As we track weather and we know weather are coming through the area we will often have teleconferences and other sorts of meetings to ascertain how our equipment is ready and prepared and how much material county by county is available,” she said. In Centre County, winter weather has a massive effect on the local Penn State University and the University’s students. College Avenue, one of the main roads of downtown State College, is home to a lot of local downtown State College businesses, and sees hundreds of cars every day pass through. With obstacles like black ice and snow squalls, the likelihood of accidents rises greatly in the winter months. Penn State psychology student Christopher Lohr says driving can be extremely dangerous. “Younger drivers learn from their parents and adopt learned behaviors where they see how their parents drive at younger ages and as they learn to drive they model driving after their parents,” he said. “As you get older sometimes parents might not follow all the rules of the road.” But how can a driver protect themselves in the winter? Fannin thinks the answer is quite simple. “If somebody doesn’t have to go somewhere and doesn’t have to travel, our best advice is don’t travel.”